Artificial Muscles Restore Ability to Blink, Save Eyesight

In addition, the technique, which uses a combination of electrode leads and silicon polymers, could be used to develop synthetic muscles to control other parts of the body. The new procedure is described in an article in the January-February issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery

Combined with artificial materials that mimic bone and tendons and advancement in interfacing electronics with the nervous system, it might not be long before artificial limbs are nearly indiscernible from the tissues they replaced.

In addition, the technique, which uses a combination of electrode leads and silicon polymers, could be used to develop synthetic muscles to control other parts of the body. The new procedure is described in an article in the January-February issue of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery

Combined with artificial materials that mimic bone and tendons and advancement in interfacing electronics with the nervous system, it might not be long before artificial limbs are nearly indiscernible from the tissues they replaced.

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Excellent news for those people that require a solution for eye injuries or strokes causing this to occur. Imagine how the artificial muscles and advancements in microelectronics, now down to molecular electronics, in creating devices to control those muscles along with other human-like functions. Androids may not be far away after all, in a few decades.
Transistors are now created at the molecular level using 6 atoms for a basic device. That will ring in another new age in the shrinking of integrated circuits that can place one or many super computers on the head of a pin.

I was wondering when this advancement was going to come about. As electroactive polymer artificial muscle can be used in humans I have always thought that the gradual advancement in piezoelectric technology could give us something akin to an android. At least moving past the use of the staid pistons and servos and potentiometers that make up most machinery. The use of these components in prosthetics always seemed clumsy to me.

Thought-operated prosthetics...Major US science conference showcases bionic prosthetics operated by thoughtSat, Feb 19, 2011 - A bionic prosthetic arm that is controlled by its operators thoughts and feels like the amputees lost limb went on display on Thursday at a major US science conference.

More than 50 amputees worldwide, many of them military veterans whose limbs were lost in combat, have received such devices since they were first developed by a US doctor, Todd Kuiken, in 2002. The arm uses technology called Targeted Muscle Reinervation, which works by rerouting brain signals from nerves that were severed in the injury to muscles that are working and intact. What we do is use the nerves that are still left, Kuiken said. Muscle becomes the biological amplifier.

Glen Lehman, a retired US sergeant who lost his arm in Iraq, demonstrated the latest technology at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. It feels great, it feels intuitive. It is a lot better than the other prosthetic I have now, said Lehman, whose forearm and elbow were blown off in a Baghdad grenade attack in 2008. The other one is still controlled by muscle impulse, you just flex muscle to make it move, it is not intuitive. This arm is more trained to me, whereas the other arm I had to train to it. It does feel like my own hand.

Lehman demonstrated for reporters how he could pinch his finger and thumb together, lift his forearm and bend his elbow, and turn his wrist just by thinking about those actions. Kuiken said more advances, such as the ability to transfer some sensation to the limb, are being studied in the lab, but have not yet made it to patients. Drawbacks include the inability to sense how hard the battery-powered prosthetic hand is squeezing, but Kuiken said scientists are working on ways to improve the technology with added sensors.

Researchers Make Synthetic Skin That Adds Touch to Artificial Limbs October 16, 2015 - People who use artificial limbs are now able to move with their prosthetics with thoughts, but they still have the very literal problem of not knowing their own strength.

Picking up something as delicate as a strawberry could easily turn the fruit to mush because there's no way to gauge how much pressure is being exerted. So scientists at Stanford have created a flexible fabric-like skin embedded with sensors that mimic some of natural skin’s sensory functions. The results of the study are published in this week's issue of the journal Science. The researchers tested a two-part device. The top layer senses pressure and translates it into digital signals. The bottom layer sends the electrical pulses to nerve cells, which transmit the information to the brain which recognizes them as touch.

Model robotic hand with artificial mechano-receptors

In tests, mice cells were able to register the pressure exerted by the artificial skin. “The end goal of this would certainly be to make sensors that can be integrated with the human body in order to make prosthetic devices," said Alex Chortos, one of the lead researchers. "So we want prosthetic devices that can feel touch the same way that humans do.” The artificial skin would also be able to respond to the amount of force being applied, noting the difference between a caress and a poke.

Chortos says researchers hope to go beyond the sensation of touch. “There are a few other things like vibration and temperature and stretching, and those other things are opportunities for future work in this field," he said. Scientists hope that perhaps in the next three to five years, they will be able to create artificial skin that would allow artificial limb wearers to feel sensation, from a handhold to the heat of a coffee cup.

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